Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/240

228 bloodless war, amounted to more than six hundred thousand persons."

All these races, except the Huns, were of Teutonic or kindred lineage. What we wish particularly to call attention to is, that while they, powerful in numbers, vigorous in body, and indomitable in spirit, under the influence of the old civilization of the South speedily became extinct as races, and, except in the single case of the Visigoths, even left no visible impress of themselves upon a subsequent people, while, in fact, they dropped out of existence; yet, on the other hand, similar nations, coming also from Northern Europe, of the Teutonic family, driven by the same impulse for adventure and conquest, but going instead among the barbarous Britons, with whom they were amalgamated, became, by a slow, a natural process of evolution, the foremost nation of the globe.

These instances from antiquity are sufficiently striking. But it is in modern times only that we can really study to advantage the effect of a sudden civilization upon barbarians. In the cases thus far considered we can judge of effects only when they are extreme, as leading to the extinction of a race. There is no means of estimating those lesser changes which are best measured by the aid of the census. Nor is it possible at this distance of time to appreciate fully those different elements of deterioration which can be observed in contemporary races. Hence we pass to some of the more recent illustrations of the point under discussion.

The present century has witnessed in the Sandwich Islands what is probably the most remarkable instance of civilization in the history of the world. A little more than one hundred years ago Captain Cook was killed by the natives, who, though not cannibals, were as degraded as any tribe on the face of the earth. The story of this people is too familiar to need repetition. The first missionary visited the islands in 1820. In 1853, just one generation later, the American Board of Foreign Missions declared that the people were Christianized, and withdrew its support from the churches. Since that time they have not only maintained themselves, but are supporting missionaries in Polynesia. The formation of a constitutional government, the negotiation of treaties, the development of a system of education, the grateful and graceful contributions made in aid of the United States Government during our late civil war, all have happened within the memory of middle-aged men. Mr. Charles Nordhoff, who is certainly not prejudiced in favor of the missionaries, says that they "have eradicated the grosser crimes of murder and theft so completely that. . . people leave their houses open all day and unlocked all night, without thought of theft; and there is not a country in the world where the stranger may travel in such absolute safety as in these islands. In 1880 there were two